In a gathering that underscored the growing political muscle of Silicon Valley, a crowd of tech insiders hit San Francisco Thursday to support the Congressional campaign of former Obama trade representative and Democratic Valley attorney Ro Khanna.

The $2,600 a head fundraiser for Khanna, the former Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary who has mounted a 2014 primary challenge to seven-term South Bay Rep. Mike Honda, drew about 100 to the Park Tavern in North Beach Thursday.

Among those present were Fanning, Parker, venture capitalist Tim Draper, a Republican, and executives from a wide range of firms including Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Twitter, Pinterest, Y Combinator, Mozilla, Dropbox, and Founders’ Fund also showed.

Popular rapper and tech investor MC Hammer also hit the fundraiser, as did John Perry Barlow, the former Grateful Dead lyricist who is a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Parker — who at 24 was Facebook’s first president and now also ranks among the world’s wealthiest individuals (according to the Forbes billionaires list he’s #736) — introduced Khanna.

He told the audience that the candidate represents new leadership for Silicon Valley, which hasn’t had “a hard-driving, young, dynamic candidate” to represent its interests. Take a listen:

“The premise of this campaign is quite simple,” Khanna told the crowd. “We’ve had quite brilliant people…use technology to change the world. And it’s time that we actually change politics, that Silicon Valley has the potential to do this.”

“It’s not just about having a tech agenda. This is about something much deeper — our values, and our ability to use those values to change Washington and the world,” he told them.

Khanna said economic growth and prosperity remain the number one issue in the South Bay region, but cited education and immigration reform as key matters — as well as trade, tax reform, and manufacturing growth.

The San Francisco fundraiser was a reminder how, more than 18 months before the election, the CD-17 race — a direct result of California’s “top two” primary system that went into effect in 2012 — is one to watch.

Khanna, 37, is the son of Indian immigrants and represents a population whose growing numbers have made district a home to the biggest concentration of South Asians in the nation.

Honda, 71, is a Japanese-American who spent time as a child in an internment camp, and who has built a loyal following in the Asian Pacific Islander community.

Khanna has raised more than $1 million to date, much of it from Silicon Valley leaders, and was recently endorsed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Honda has long been a favorite of labor, and has already announced a long list of endorsements from stars in the Democratic establishment. They include President Barack Obama, Attorney General Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Perez.

Hammer heard Khanna’s address and his question-and-answer session with supporters, and told us he came away impressed.

“It was extremely refreshing to hear answers to the questions, unscripted and detailed — and it showed the connection between how society has been affected by new ideas, the ideas that shape the economy and come out of Silicon Valley,” the rapper said. “He connected those dots..and that kind of thinking, the creativity and passion, is what we need.”

There will be plenty more on this race in the months to come.
Stay tuned.